


The High King of the Noldor and His Faithful Hound

by shatteredGlasses (Hrunting_License)



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Blow Jobs, Dark, Dissociation, Drunk Sex, Dubious Consent, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Emotional Manipulation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not LaCE compliant, Physical Abuse, Psychological Trauma, Rape to assert dominance, Sibling Incest, Violent Sex, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-24 00:55:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30064218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hrunting_License/pseuds/shatteredGlasses
Summary: A series of bad decisions, feat. Maglor and Celegorm, while Maedhros is in Angband.
Relationships: Celegorm | Turcafinwë/Maglor | Makalaurë
Comments: 11
Kudos: 35





	1. if it's true that ignorance is bliss

**Author's Note:**

> chapter titles from Skater of the Surface by Karine Polwart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Celegorm corners Maglor in the forest. He wants a rescue mission for Maedhros. Maglor refuses.

Maglor never used to need solitude.Or perhaps it would be more fair to say that Makalaurë never needed solitude.Now, Maglor is the High King—or hopes he is the High King, because if he is not then Russandol—no.He doesn’t, he won’t, he can’t think of that.Now, Maglor is the High King, or at least he has assumed that role, and now he needs time away.Time to himself.Time for quiet.

He’s taken to walking in the forest near their encampment in the early morning, before almost anyone else is awake, the Stars still and lovely overhead.He knows it’s not the safest thing he’s ever done in his life, out here, alone, in the wilds of Middle Earth, but he can’t find it in himself to care.It’s no more dangerous than what Maedhros did.

What he hasn’t realized is just _how_ predictable he’s become until the instant his foot comes down on a seemingly innocent patch of leaves and the next moment he’s upside down, swinging in the air, dangling with a too-tight snare cutting cruelly into his leg.It’s possible he could have stumbled onto someone’s hunting grounds, but he doesn’t think so.It’s a path; you wouldn’t set a trap on a path unless you were aiming to catch an Elf.And he’s fairly certain he knows exactly who would have set such a trap.

So he isn’t surprised when Celegorm swaggers into the clearing, clearly pleased with himself.He’s irritated enough, in fact, to forget everything about who he is supposed to be and what role he’s playing, irritated enough to cross his arms over his chest and yell, “Tyelkormo, let me down this instant!” in his best Makalaurë voice.

“No,” Celegorm says, grinning at him, and there’s a hard light in his eyes that Maglor doesn’t remember.But then, he doesn’t look in his brothers’ eyes anymore, when he can help it.“I think we need to have a discussion, brother mine.”He crosses the clearing and stands before Maglor, his eyes fierce with reflected treelight, with starlight rippling through his fair hair.He’s ethereal and feral, all at once, and Maglor wonders how he could ever have thought his little brother a _warrior_ , instead of a _hunter_.He’s all hunter now; it’s almost as if Oromë himself stood there, wreathed in stinking furs.

Celegorm fists a hand in Maglor’s hair and twists it, fiercely, painfully.“I want you to give me a troop of our best soldiers so I can ride to Angband and free Maedhros,” he says.

“No,” Maglor tells him, refusal for refusal, dizzy with the blood collecting in his head.

Celegorm isn’t grinning anymore; he’s bearing his teeth.“You _will_ , Káno,” he says.

“I am the High King, whether or not I am right side up,” Maglor tells him.“No.”

“Maedhros is the High King,” Celegorm snarls, and that bolt hits home.Maglor does not flinch, but his heart pounds wildly in his chest. Celegorm reaches up, one hand clutching a naked blade, and then Maglor is falling, his brother’s arms all that catch him and keep him from slamming face-first into the dirt.He tries to scramble to his feet, but he’s dizzy and off-balance, and Celegorm is the stronger, even if Maglor is the swifter. 

Celegorm’s heavy hand squeezes the back of his neck, and then they’re fighting, rolling over and over one another on the ground.An elbow slams into Maglor’s face, and he kicks out hard, but only manages a glancing blow to the fleshy part of Celegorm’s thigh.He’s not as strong as his brother, and he’s never particularly enjoyed wrestling the way Tyelko did, back in Valinor.And he’s dizzy, overset, and unable to shake off the image of hair, red as blood, falling about the true High King like a cloak.When Celegorm gets a hand around his throat and starts to choke him, he doesn’t even bother to struggle against him, just going limp with a quiet sigh.

He hears his brother growl something with frustration, and then he’s being picked up again, gasping and wheezing, and slammed back against the nearest tree, an ancestral oak whose bulges press oddly and unpleasantly against his _hröa_.He’s too dazed to protest as Celegorm uses the rope of the snare to bind him to the tree trunk.He thinks his head will have a swelling knot upon it later, and he strongly suspects he’ll have a black eye.Certainly the marks of Celegorm’s hands will appear around his neck.

“There,” Celegorm says, stepping back, as if he’s surveying his handiwork.He’s breathing hard and flushed, and his lithe, muscled form is packed with coiled tension.“Now, will you agree, brother?”

Maglor laughs, and his laughter is as musical as ever, no matter that his practice time has been cruelly dwindled, of late.“Why should I?” he retorts.“Dost thou plan a murder, Tyelko? Wilt thou bloody thy blade even further?” Perhaps he would deserve that, but he can hardly let Celegorm go so far.What a disaster it would be, with him in command of the remaining Noldor.

Growling, Celegorm backhands him.“Thou shouldst never have been the elder,” he snarls.“I am stronger and fairer and braver than thee, Káno, thou craven songbird!” _I would not have left him there_ , Celegorm does not say, but his eyes say it, and for an instant Maglor thinks it is Celegorm who is caught in the trap, for his eyes reflect the mute dumb suffering of an animal in extremis.

They are almost nose to nose now, Maglor trapped against the tree, helpless; Celegorm free and rippling with tension.Then Celegorm’s hands fall onto Maglor’s leggings, and he’s pulling them down.Maglor shouts with surprise, struggling against him—he wasn’t _expecting_ this, surely not even Celegorm would go so far ( _but do you deserve it_ , a soft cold voice whispers, _do you deserve it, is it worse than what Maitimo suffers, sweet Káno_ )—

Clearly, Celegorm will go so far; he’s panting loudly, angrily.“Thou art _not_ my better,” he tells Maglor hotly.“Thou art not, this accident of birth—”

Maglor cannot break the bindings, and he is not as strong as Celegorm.He cannot stop Celegorm as his brother’s hands force his legs apart.“I’ll make it _good_ for you,” Celegorm laughs, a fey light in his eyes.“I’ll make you beg me, bitch,” and he doesn’t kiss Maglor, but he bites his shoulder as he forces two fingers inside.Maglor doesn’t know where the slickness came from, isn’t certain whether to be grateful for it.

He tries to stay silent, but a ragged noise falls from his lips when Celegorm finds the dark sweet place inside of him, and he grins wolfishly.“There, songbird, that’s a better use for thy tunes,” he smirks, and Maglor tries to kick him, tries to bite him, because that, of all the things that Celegorm has said or done today, is the one that hits most below the belt.

His brother scissors his fingers inside him until Maglor is gasping, until his cock is hard, and then he reaches down and opens his own trousers.Maglor shuts his eyes and grits his teeth—this is obviously happening, and it’s all of a piece with his life this past year, hardly even seems worse than most of it—and Celegorm’s voice grunts as he shoves inside, paying little heed to Maglor’s hiss of pain.

“I heard you in Valinor, rutting in your rooms with—with your—well, with whoever it is,” Celegorm says thickly, the menace in his voice a little belied by the fact he doesn’t even know who it was.Maglor kind of wants to laugh at him, but—it hurts, still, with all the Grinding Ice and the flames of Losgar between them, but it doesn’t matter.That was already lost to Maglor in any case.It hurts, that he’s split open like this, with his brother mounting him and biting his neck as if he were an obstreperous mare and Celegorm the chiding stallion.

He hears himself gasping as Celegorm starts to rut inside him.His brother’s hands fall onto his hips, angling them up.“Needy—little—slut—” grunts Celegorm.“That’s all you are.You may have fooled everyone else, but you can’t fool me.”

The laugh that falls out of Maglor’s mouth he disguises as a strangled groan.It’s so typical of Celegorm to see, unerringly, some shard of truth that everyone has missed and still fail to map the bigger picture.“ _Tyelko_ ,” Maglor whines, half in amusement despite the situation, and he hears Celegorm give a satisfied grunt, his thrusts growing apace.It feels good, unfortunately; Maglor thinks he might prefer to be raped with less expertise and more violence, but he supposes there is some argument for poetic justice in either.

Celegorm hasn’t, of course, noticed that he’s being mocked.Maglor didn’t expect him to.It’s a poor man’s mockery, in any case—doesn’t really give him much of a feeling of superiority when Celegorm’s cock is pounding into his hole and making him see stars.But he still wants to laugh.

His body jerks with each one of Celegorm’s thrusts, and it makes his toes curl and his cock leak.He’s not exactly surprised.That seems to be how ones _hröa_ reacts to this kind of thing.Perhaps someone else might be able to close themself off from the pleasure; Maglor certainly can’t.“Why aren’t you begging me to stop?” Celegorm asks abruptly, and he sounds—so—young, out of nowhere, out of the blue, that Maglor has to blink and collect his scattered senses before he’s certain he heard right.He half expects Celegorm to tell him he’s supposed to struggle, too, though he couldn’t really do a good job of it when he’s tied to the tree and maybe three quarters of his brother’s size.

He’s not even sure if an answer’s expected.The next instant, Celegorm seems to realize how he sounds, because his voice turns dark and vicious, and he strikes Maglor across the face with such force his head snaps back against the tree.“Or am I too good for you?” Celegorm demands, snarling.“You’ve always wanted this, you’ve always wanted me to mount you and fuck you and use you, because _I’m_ the—”

“The pretty one?” Maglor gasps.“I thought that was Maitimo.”The pun rolls easily off his tongue—too easily.Shock writes itself across Celegorm’s face, and he hits Maglor again, but now Maglor _is_ laughing, can’t stop himself, laughing and moaning at the same time—

“How dare you,” Celegorm shouts—Valar, he’s so loud, he’s always been loud, ever since he was a child—Maglor winces as it rings through his ear—“How dare you even _talk_ about him, when you—when you—”

His face is twisted with some kind of grief or sorrow, but it doesn’t stop him from thrusting into Maglor’s body again and again and again, until both of their chests are heaving, until the moisture glistening on Tyelko’s face might be sweat instead of tears.The thrusts are brutal, and Maglor finds his voice has failed him; his hearing is strange and tinny but he can still make out the slap of flesh on flesh as his brother continues to fuck him as hard as anyone ever has.

Celegorm is still talking, almost mumbling now, no longer with the same savage inflection but with something wilder and yet more lost threading through it, “You’ll take it, you’ll take it and you’ll _like_ it, you left him— _betrayed_ him, Káno, he loved you, he _trusted you_ —”

“I know,” Maglor whispers, and he shuts his eyes.He doesn’t say, _he ordered me to leave him_ , because it’s not an excuse.It doesn’t matter that he’s doing what Maedhros told him.It doesn’t matter that he has no choice.It doesn’t matter that he knows that Morgoth would never treat with them in truth.None of it matters because what is happening to Maglor does not and never can and never will measure up to what is happening to his beloved older brother.

He hopes, desperately, that Morgoth was lying.He hopes, desperately, that Russandol is dead. _Please let him be dead_.Oh—he’s crying now; he can feel the tears wet on his face.Celegorm makes a pleased little sound and hits him again and again, then rakes his nails down Maglor’s body—they’re sharp and it’s painful, but his _hröa_ feels distant and far away, floating somewhere beyond a haze of pleasure mixed with a pain that is distinctly not physical.

“Why aren’t you _looking_ at me?” demands Celegorm.“Stop acting like you’re _better_ than me!Stop acting like you’re _smarter_!”He bites Maglor’s shoulder so hard that Maglor feels the skin break, and he cries out at the dull agony of it.“I know what you _did_ ,” Celegorm growls, and Maglor’s eyes fly open in startlement.There’s blood on his brother’s face and blood on his lips.

“You’ll—have—to be—more specific,” he gasps out, because after all, Celegorm is still fucking him, still stretching him open, cock a hard iron bar inside him.His body bounces with it, and he feels fluid trickling over his cock and down his shoulder.

“I _heard_ you, when they came—from Morgoth—I heard, I _know_ that you turned them away, so _stop_ acting like you’re a _martyr_ and you don’t _deserve this_ —”

It’s simultaneously so _far_ from what Maglor thinks and yet—he _didn’t_ know that Celegorm knew; he _has_ been acting superior— _poor dumb little Tyelko_ —when all the time, Celegorm really was punishing him for his actions, for what he really did do—that Maglor laughs out loud again, and then sobs.

“Stop it,” Celegorm says, in a low, desperate voice.“Stop it stop it _stop it_ —” and he sounds like Maglor’s little brother again, from long ago, when Maglor would tease him until he was yelling in the middle of some board game or other, when he simply couldn’t see why he was about to lose in the next move, and Maglor would hint and hint and laugh until Tyelko lost his cool—perhaps, he thinks, that was unkind.Perhaps he has always been unkind.

“Isn’t—isn’t that—my line?” laughs Maglor, because he _can’t_ stop, so there’s no point in trying, and then he cries out again as Tyelko slams into him so hard his back hits the tree with enough force to bruise, and somehow between all of that and the way his cock hits his stomach in rebound, he’s coming all across his front, sobbing and gasping and muddled.His head hits the wood with a crack in the next moment, and everything seems to go strange and dark and yet lit at the edges, and he sees the darkness outside of Formenos, all the stars gone, and—and now he can hear himself screaming—and pleading—but he can’t hear the words—but Tyelko will be _pleased_ , won’t he?

In the hollow distant space between breaths, he feels his brother pulsing and coming inside of him, and it ought to disgust him, but he doesn’t quite know how to have that feeling anymore, separate from the ever-present disgust at himself anyway.He blinks, absently, wondering what Celegorm will do next.His mind is working a little slowly, probably because of that blow to his head.But he recognizes that, depending on Celegorm’s next move, there may be a problem.

If Celegorm kills him here—well, then good luck to him, but Maglor has to try to stop him, because Celegorm will waste all Maedhros’s hard work and get everyone killed.That’s not much use.So—so, assuming he can stop him, he has to try.And whatever Tyelko has done to Káno, he doesn’t much care; Káno deserves it.But Celegorm cannot assault the High King of the Noldor and walk away unscathed.

 _Oh, Nelyo_ , Makalaurë lets himself think, briefly, sweetly, oddly yearning, _I am so sorry_. _I wish I had died for thee._

He’s expecting to have to think of a plan, to force his tongue to work, to taunt Celegorm until in his rage he releases him, and so that’s the mental state he slips into.It’s a little funny, then, to find, when he shakes his head to clear it, that Celegorm is slicing through the bonds himself, as if he’s won.As if he doesn’t expect the other to be able to fight back.

That’s sweet.That’s stupid.

Maglor stumbles to the ground, his legs giving out, and it gives him the chance to slip his hand down his boot, because Tyelko isn’t nearly as clever as he thinks he is—

“So, Káno,” his little brother says tauntingly.“How does it feel?Is being my bitch enough incentive get Nelyo back?”

It’s immensely satisfying for Maglor to slam the knife up right into the joint at Celegorm’s groin.He gives out a surprised puffing gasp, staring down at Maglor, who rises coolly, pulling his leggings back up around his waist, never mind the unpleasant feeling of his brother’s seed slowly trickling out of him.“No,” he says, quite gently, as Celegorm reaches down, stunned, his hand grasping the pommel of the knife.“It isn’t.And no, don’t do that, if you take it out you’ll probably bleed to death.If you leave it in, I imagine you’ll be able to hobble back to the healers’ tent in time to keep breathing.”

Celegorm’s fair face is dark with anger; his mouth opens and closes. 

“Oh,” says Maglor, as if only just thinking of it.“And if you ever try anything like this again, to me or to anyone else, little brother, I will chop off your cock and balls and feed them to you.Is that understood?”

Indignation flushes across Celegorm’s face, but before he can protest, Maglor grabs his shirt front and yanks him down until they are face to face.“ _Is that understood_?”

“Y-Yes, Káno.”

“Yes, _my king_.Or the knife comes out.”

There’s a moment when he wonders if Celegorm will refuse, if he will go from kinslaying to actual fratricide, but he swallows and spits out, “Yes, my king,” and Maglor lets him go.

“Good,” he says, calmly, not showing on his face how his heart is thundering inside his chest.“I’m glad we understand one another.”

He’s bruised and dizzy, possibly concussed, he notes.The bite in his shoulder is sore as well.But going to the healers would mean answering some very unfortunate questions about the handprint-shaped bruises on his thighs, and the marks of Celegorm’s fingers on his throat.So—no healers for him, then.He’ll be fine.The injuries are comparatively minor. 

He leaves Celegorm there, as the stars wheel above them and the forest hums with its usual soft noises.There’s a queer tightness in his chest.He thinks he will seek out a mountain stream—there are several in the area—and wash himself in the cold water until all sensation is quite gone.

Then he will re-emerge, the High King of the Noldor, and he will go back to his people.


	2. then you must be coming all the time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drunk minstrels make bad decisions.

Maglor is drunk.He’s very aware of this, because it’s not _enough_. He’s had enough that his gait is unsteady and his vision is blurred, but the awful hollow feeling of misery is as undimmed as it was before he went through two bottles of wine.Ten years ago, he thinks.Ten years ago, he sent Morgoth’s messengers away and condemned his brother to torment.For ten years, he has worn the crown in Maedhros’s stead.

He stares down at it, a simple silver circlet that Finwë used to wear, now a little battered, a little tarnished.He ought to have it polished.Maglor, as the High King, is careful with his appearance, though not to the exclusion of all else.He’s a symbol, and a symbol must look a certain way.

For tonight, though—he casts the crown onto his desk and stares out the window.It’s raining; the stars are invisible.No one will see him leave his study under cover of darkness.No one will see him make his way to the little cottage that Celegorm built for himself, set far back amongst the trees, away from the shore of the lake where the rest of them are installed in a semi-permanent settlement.

He admits, when he’s on his back in the mud with an enthusiastic tongue in his ear, that expecting _no one_ to see him might have been over-optimistic.Huan is very, very happy to see him, and Maglor doesn’t think he can bear it, but he whispers soothing words to his brother’s dog, presses his face into wet fur and lets the tears be lost that way.

“What are you doing with my dog?” Celegorm demands, and the next second Huan makes a grumpy noise as he’s pulled off of Maglor.

“He was greeting me,” Maglor replies tiredly, as the misery ambushes him again.“I came to see you.”

“Why would you do that?”

Celegorm’s dark eyes are forbidding, unwelcoming, just as Maglor expected.He favors his brother with a thin-lipped smile.“Perhaps I merely wanted your company, dear brother,” he replies.“Or perhaps I am, as you pointed out so aptly during one of our earlier conversations, a _needy little slut_.”

His brother gives him an odd look.“But you’re not, are you?” he mumbles, one finger twisting in his golden hair.

“Maybe I am,” Maglor mutters.He finds that he has drawn his knees into his chest.It’s not very kingly.He’s not sure he cares.His stomach twists inside him.

“Last time we did this, you stabbed me,” Tyelko points out sulkily.

“Last time we did this, you raped me,” Maglor retorts with some irritation.“I am hardly asking you to rape me.” _Am I?_

“You haven’t asked me for anything, yet,” Celegorm says, drawing himself up to his full height.He’s lovely like that, even with the rain dripping from his hair and muscled shoulders.It would probably be better if he weren’t.But, Maglor supposes, he’ll be cruel enough, if he can find the right words to say, the right buttons to push and press and goad.

“Shall I grovel?” he asks lightly.“Go down on my knees and beg you like the slut I am?”

Celegorm crosses his arms, an undeniable flicker of interest in his eyes.“I thought the High King did not do such things.”

“Oh, he doesn’t,” Maglor says, with a thin smile.“And I do hope you recognize that it would be stupid of you to tell anyone that Maglor does, either.”

He’s said the magic word.Celegorm’s face turns from questioning to black, a thundercloud covering his countenance.“Get up,” he snarls, fisting a hand in Maglor’s hair.“You want me to _fuck you_ , Káno?I’ll shove my cock so far down your throat you won’t be talking for a week.”

 _Good_ , Maglor thinks tiredly, the weariness of the alcohol soaking into his bones.Huan dances nearby, whining in concern, but he’s watched the brothers rough-house before.Celegorm manhandles Maglor into the hut and throws him to the ground; he hits it hard, but doesn’t bother to cry out at the pain.His palms are scraped up; he’ll find an excuse for that later.

He doesn’t have much time to think about it, because Celegorm strides around to his front and undoes the laces of his leggings, shoving his crotch into Maglor’s face, laying a heavy hand in his hair.“Go on, then, Káno,” he says, mockingly.“Work for it.”

He’s not hard—Maglor supposes, rather dryly, that they haven’t been wrestling enough for that yet—but it doesn’t matter.He opens his mouth and takes his brother’s soft cock inside, lathing his tongue around it as it hardens slowly.He wishes Tyelko didn’t have golden hair; it makes him think too much of what he’s lost.But he doesn’t have to look at his brother like this; he just has to suck and lick and moan deep in his throat until Celegorm makes an impatient noise as his cock reaches full hardness and, using his hair almost as reins to hold him in place, starts fucking his mouth.

He’s very rough.In Valinor, Maglor would never have let anyone use him this way, because he would have been worried about the impact on his voice.Now, his voice is irrelevant.It’s freeing, in a way; there is nothing left of Makalaurë to hold onto.There is just him, with Celegorm’s hard cock on his tongue, choking on his brother’s cock.

Tears spill freely from the corners of his eyes.“Stars, you love this, don’t you?” Celegorm asks roughly.

It’s a strange way of putting it, Maglor thinks, but he nods anyway.He wishes he weren’t trained as a singer, now—he can go too long, too easily without breathing, and he wants the safety and dimness of lack of air.His throat is sore already, at least, and he knows his voice will rasp tomorrow, with the way Celegorm is using his mouth.

“Slut,” Celegorm tells him breathlessly.“I still have a scar, you know,” he says, anger threading through his voice.“If you love this so much, why do I still have a scar?”

 _Because I told you, the High King doesn’t love this_ , Maglor thinks, in utter frustration, and his eyes fly open to glare up at Celegorm, who glares right back, still moving inside him, cock heavy on his tongue.Stars, why can’t he understand the difference?If he did, he could _be_ the High King.If he _understood_ , then Maglor could give all of this up and go hide himself away on a lonely shore forever.

Tension stretches between them. _Just use me,_ Maglor thinks, exhausted. _Just hurt me.I deserve it.We both know it_.

Then there’s a cold nose on the back of his neck, and he’s pulling back with a yelp.“HUAN!” Celegorm bellows, in a completely different tone of voice.“You idiot.Sit.No.In the corner. _Sit_.”

Maglor doesn’t quite start laughing, but it’s a near thing.He wipes his face with the back of his hand.“Huan,” he says, his voice coming out with a rasp he isn’t used to.“I’m fine.See?”Briefly, he wonders what the dog would have done, if he had been there—but presumably that’s exactly why he wasn’t.

Huan wags his tail, licks Maglor’s face all over, gives Tyelko a suspicious huff, and retreats.

“Sorry,” Celegorm says awkwardly.He’s still hard.It’s—strange—to see him like this, to see both of them like this.Maglor feels as if he’s watching himself from a long distance away, seated on the floor in front of his brother’s hard cock, with both of them lost and afraid, but there’s a barrier between them.Of all his brothers, Celegorm is the one he understands the least, and he’s fairly sure the feeling is mutual.If it were anyone else, he might have some idea of how to comfort them, or how to ask for comfort.

But with Tyelko, all he can do is shut his eyes and open his mouth.“Look—Káno,” Tyelko says, and then stops, and then says, “Oh, never mind,” and shoves his cock back down Maglor’s throat.

It’s good like this.He doesn’t have to think; he can just be useful.He’s not really more than half-hard himself, but it doesn’t matter; he isn’t planning on coming.He’s not doing this for the high of an orgasm—he wouldn’t deserve that anyway.He’s doing this to fade away beneath the onslaught of sensation, as Celegorm takes him roughly, making a series of loud, pleasured noises as he rocks down his brother’s throat.The tears make their way to Maglor’s eyes again, overflowing and running down his face.Huan doesn’t interrupt this time.The air stops flowing into his lungs.He’s not thinking anymore.He’s not thinking.That’s good.That’s—

“Fuck, _Káno_ ,” Celegorm moans, and he yanks Maglor’s head right up to his belly as he comes down his brother’s throat.

Maglor’s been doing a perfectly fine job of suppressing his gag reflex until now, until all of a sudden Tyelko’s cock is too far back and there’s heat in his throat and his stomach, and he’s _thinking_ again.He gags and tastes bile, and it’s too much—he has to pull away as his stomach turns over and he empties an appalling mix of stale wine, stomach bile, and his brother’s semen onto the floor.Huan bounds forward happily.

“ _No_!” shouts Celegorm, sounding exasperated.“Down, boy!No, you _can’t_ eat it.”Maglor stares miserably down at the mess as his brother wrestles his dog into submission.He’ll need to do something about that, but his head is pounding, and even the candlelight is too bright.

Celegorm’s footsteps move around; he’s muttering to Huan.Maglor tries to make himself get up and fails several times in succession.Finally, Celegorm returns with a bucket of water and a mop and sets about cleaning it up.Maglor thinks he ought to offer, but he also thinks he’ll just make it worse.

“You didn’t tell me you were drunk,” Tyelko says accusingly.

“You didn’t ask,” Maglor replies absently.

“Ugh,” says Tyelko.

“I’m sorry,” says Maglor, helplessly.His brother shakes his head and sighs.

“Take the bed,” he says abruptly.

“What?”

“Take the bed, you need to sleep it off.Up you get.”His heavy hand grabs Maglor’s shoulder, hoists him up, and half-tosses him onto the small pallet at the side of the room.Celegorm’s eyes gleam slightly, but all he says is, “Go to sleep, Káno.”

Maglor thinks he ought to protest, but his head is spinning and his stomach is heaving, and he doesn’t want to leave another mess for Celegorm to clean up, so he does.

He wakes, mostly sober, in the middle of the night, and creeps out.Celegorm is fast asleep in the middle of the floor, curled up around Huan, who wags his tail lightly as Maglor goes past, but doesn’t move.“Take care of him, Huan,” Maglor murmurs, casting one glance back at the way the starlight illuminates his little brother’s sleeping face.

At least he’s alive.At least he’s safe.


	3. there's no lies and no disguise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maedhros is rescued and Celegorm tells Maglor.
> 
> It doesn't get the reaction he thought it would.

It seems as if Celegorm has been waiting his whole life to deliver this news.He’s beyond vindictive, beyond vengeful, beyond feelings of sorrow or joy and simply vibrating as tight as a bow string as he says, “Maedhros is rescued.Thou art _not_ the High King.”

He watches Maglor’s eyes widen and his face slacken, just as he’s imagined.He’s not beyond vindictive anymore; he wants to see his brother’s face _shatter_ beneath the news.He wants to see Maglor crumple under the weight of the realization.He wants him to _suffer_.And he’s rehearsed this scene; he knows how it goes.

It doesn’t, though.It doesn’t go like that at all.

Maglor’s knuckles tighten on the desk, and then he actually vaults across it, fisting both hands in Celegorm’s shirt front and pulling him down until they are face to face.“Tell me you’re speaking truly,” he demands, his voice thin, tight, desperate.Not, _tell me you’re lying_.“Tell me he’s safe— _please_ , Tyelko, please, tell me it’s true!”

“He—Findekáno has rescued him,” Celegorm stammers.Trying to make things move the way they’re supposed to, he adds on, in a weak sort of voice, “as we ought to have done.”

“Findekáno—Finno has—oh. _Oh_.”And Maglor does crumple now, and he does sob, pressing his face into his hands.But he looks up with clear, if tearful eyes, and says, in a wobbling voice, “Then—then he is with Finno?”

“Yes,” Celegorm says, and Maglor’s whole body seems to relax.

“Valar’s blessings upon Finno,” he murmurs.“I cannot—quite—believe it, even still.You are certain?”

“It was Uncle’s own messenger and the message clear enough,” is all Celegorm can think to say.He doesn’t _understand_.Why is Maglor pleased, when he is going to lose the crown?When he sat upon his throne and left his brother in Angband, no matter how Celegorm tried to beg him and, when that failed, to force his hand?Unbidden, the vision of Maglor upon the floor of his hut, drunk and throwing up, rises before him, the way Huan whined and softly pawed at him.The strange hidden thing behind his brother’s eyes that he could not read.

“But you don’t want him back,” he says, clutching at straws, as if by saying what he thought was true he can make it true and so regain control of the situation.Maglor’s eyes go very wide.

“I want Russandol back more than I want to be alive,” he says distinctly, straightforwardly, with no trace of mockery or malice or double meaning, and Celegorm gawks at him.

“Then why—you sent Morgoth’s messengers away!You wouldn’t bargain for him!You _left him there!_ ”

He can feel the hot press of Maglor’s _hröa_ around his cock still, the way he squirmed at first and then stopped fighting, the way he lay limp against the tree as Celegorm flung the accusations at him.The way he wouldn’t _react_ , as if he thought he was above it all, above the punishment, untouchable and martyrish.The way his grey eyes would not even look at Celegorm, as if he were not there.

“He told me to,” Maglor says, with a sigh.“I promised him.”

“He…what?”

A small smile and a shrug.“Maedhros made me promise that if he were taken I would not put our forces in danger trying to save him.I promised him.I owed him that much, for—for Losgar.For Finno.”

“What—what do you mean?He wouldn’t.You’re lying.”But there’s something missing in Maglor’s eyes, some shutter that has covered his expression for thirty years that is gone.It’s gone, and Celegorm sort of wants it back.It’s all gone complicated and strange and _wrong_ , and he’s trying to sort through the jagged shards of his feelings, the way a little voice is whispering in the back of his head, _you raped your brother and maybe he didn’t deserve it after all._

That smile grows wider, Maglor’s mouth twisting at the edges, and there’s a little of the twisted cleverness in those eyes at Celegorm hates so much.“Tyelko,” Maglor sighs.“He was right.We would have lost.We would have died.”

“Findekáno—”

“I am not Finno, and neither are you.” _You, especially_ , he doesn’t say.He doesn’t need to.

“I don’t believe you,” Celegorm says stubbornly, but he know it doesn’t sound quite right.“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“Because you’re stupid, Tyelko,” says Maglor, his smile lengthening in amusement, and the taunt sends the same blinding rage through Celegorm that it always does, but when he grabs at Maglor, he realizes his brother is still smiling, and he realizes he can’t _do_ this, because look at what he has already done—

How many things did he break, as a child, in his rages?How many times has Makalaurë goaded him into breaking something that he later regretted?But why would Káno goad him, now, when there is nothing left to break?It doesn’t make sense.Káno doesn’t make sense to Tyelko.He never has.

He halts with a hand on Maglor’s shoulder, with a taut strange _thing_ stretching between them.What is Maglor trying to get him to break this time?

“Come on,” Maglor says, quiet, gentle, and still, the mockery gone from his voice again.“Tyelko.You’re the only one who sees right through me, aren’t you?”

That’s what he thought.Until today.Until a heartbeat ago. “Stop it,” he whispers.“Why are you doing this? _Stop it_.”He shakes Maglor a little, then stops, almost fearful.

“He’s _safe_ ,” Maglor says, and suddenly he’s clutching at Celegorm’s hands, pressing at them feebly with his own.“He’s safe.It doesn’t matter anymore.None of it matters anymore.” 

Celegorm doesn’t know why, but he’s putting his arms around his older brother—his big brother, but still smaller than he is, the smallest of all the brothers.He always forgets that; Maglor makes him forget it.Maglor usually inhabits so much of the space around his _hröa_ that he seems nearly half as big again as he really is.

His brother looks up at him wearily, and there are lines about his eyes, about his mouth.Is that a streak of silver in his dark hair?Where has it come from?How has it come to be there? 

_What have you done, Tyelkormo?_

“Káno,” he whispers.“I’m sorry.I didn’t—I’m sorry.”His voice sounds stripped and quiet and hollow.

Maglor shakes his head.“Tyelko, it’s, you didn’t know.It doesn’t matter.He’s safe now.I can’t make up for it, but he’s safe now.”

He has no way to fix this, no way to mend what is already broken.He feels like he’s looking down at Maglor again, stretched against the tree, bruises blooming on his face, on his hips, Celegorm’s seed tricking out of him—and it’s all different. _Is that what you wanted?_ Celegorm thinks, aghast. _Is that what you wanted me to do again—_

_Last time, you stabbed me._

_Last time, you raped me.I’m hardly asking you to rape me._

What is _wrong_ with his brother?(What is wrong with him?)

Celegorm is used to surety.He’s comfortable with it.The world is clear inside his head, and he knows when he’s done the right thing and when he hasn’t.That’s one of the reasons he doesn’t get on well with Maglor, who muddles his head and mixes things up and makes everything so terribly complicated, when Celegorm knows it isn’t, and it shouldn’t be.And he’s still angry, but he can’t _be_ angry at Maglor for this, because no matter what Maglor _did_ do, he’s not the one who methodically set out to rape his brother, because his brother deserved it, and he’s not the one who’s discovered that no, actually, he didn’t deserve it at all, even if he maybe wanted it, which is appalling, and—

His head hurts.He hates this.He can’t be angry at Maglor, but he wants to punch someone. “Káno,” he says finally.“Maybe you should come downstairs and cuddle Huan.”He knows how stupid he sounds, and he hates to sound stupid, but it’s all he can think of.

“You know…that sounds nice,” Maglor murmurs, resting his head against Celegorm’s shoulder, as if he were the younger brother and Celegorm the older.“I suppose I’ll have to send messengers to Fingolfin in a little, but…”He reaches up and plucks the crown from his head effortlessly.Celegorm doesn’t know if he could have done that.His eyes follow it as Maglor tosses it carelessly on the desk.“Take me to see Huan, Tyelko,” Maglor says softly, and he slips his hand through Celegorm’s, trustingly, as if they were both children again.

It burns.Celegorm’s throat burns, too; his eyes burn.He probably deserves it.“All right,” he says casually.“I have some treats I save for special occasions, he’ll love it if you give them to him.”

“That sounds nice,” Maglor says again, says dreamily.“Let’s go.Don’t make me race you.”

“I’d win,” Celegorm says automatically.

“I know.”

“Wait.”He slips a hand underneath Maglor’s knees and hoists him up in a bridle carry, getting a startled little noise.“Now we’ll both win.How’s that?”

He gets a laugh, and Maglor hides his face in Celegorm’s shoulder.“Sounds—perfect.Thank you, Tyelko.”

“No,” Celegorm says hurriedly.“No—don’t.Thank me.”

“I don’t blame—”

“Just—shut up.Please?”

A shrug.Maglor presses a hand to his mouth as if in assent and curls against his brother’s shoulder.He looks so small.He looks so worn.But Maedhros is back, Celegorm reminds himself.Maedhros is back; their adored eldest brother.Even if he’s been hurt, he’s safe now.

Maedhros will make it better, and in the meantime, there will be dog cuddles.It’s going to be fine.


End file.
